One Central Macau in Nape is hosting the “Pablo Picasso: Paintings in Glass” exhibition at the shopping mall’s Atrium, presenting six artworks among 50 pieces signed and selected by Picasso between 1954 and 1957 to be interpreted in gemmail.
Gemmail, which means enamel gem in French, is a type of stained-glass art developed during the 1930s by French painter Jean Crotti, Wikipedia notes.
According to a statement provided during yesterday’s opening ceremony, the works displayed at the exhibition, a Collateral Exhibition for “Art Macao: Macao International Art Biennale 2023” and sponsored by Hongkong Land, are borrowed from a private collection. It is the first time that Macau is showcasing Picasso’s work in gemmaux (plural for gemmail) and represents many of Picasso’s most influential studies of life.
The works, the statement added, are reminiscent of the stained-glass technique seen in churches but feature backlit light boxes engineered by a workshop led by physicist Roger Malherbe-Navarre while working on light diffraction in Paris during the mid-1950s.
The statement said that the layering of several panes of carefully assembled glass gave Picasso’s works “the third dimensionality he sought to achieve in paintings”, while the backlit light boxes also give “a new life to colours, as well as preserving them closer to the intention of the artist”.
There are also enlarged reproductions behind each displayed work to enable more members of the public to see them from different angles, the statement added.
The exhibition is open daily from 10:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. until October 31. Admission is free. This year also marks the 50th anniversary of Picasso’s death.
N.B. Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for cofounding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Source: Wikipedia
Photos taken during yesterday’s opening ceremony by Rui Pastorin
